It is a very general problem, for many families with young children, that the children will sometimes inadvertently or intentionally kick off their blanket or quilt because they feel relatively warm. Also, when the child moves or otherwise changes position during the night, the blanket or quilt will also shift its position and can sometimes slip off their body. Becoming uncovered by the blanket or quilt can result in the child's body temperature dropping after they fall asleep, and/or as the room temperature drops. Therefore, the children will have a more restless sleep, may wake during the night, and/or be more susceptible to illness.
Various approaches have been developed to hold the blanket, quilt, sleepwear, or other coverings on the child as they sleep. These approaches are described in, for example, a number of prior art documents. The following patents are illustrative of these attempts:
Munro, U.S. Pat. No. 1,940,224, issued Aug. 13, 1932, discloses a sleeping garment having an outer shell and an inner robe and hood combination, which robe/hood can be fastened to the inside of the outer shell using fasteners.
Bell, U.S. Pat. No. 2,355,138, issued Aug. 8, 1944, discloses a combination sleeping garment for infants, comprising a blanket and a jacket, which covers the arms and torso of the infant. The blanket has a means of being attached to a crib. The jacket may be attached to the blanket by a fastening means, for instance a zipper, thereby securing the infant under the blanket in a position where the infant's torso is fixed relative to the blanket. The infant may be placed in the jacket to allow either a face up or face down sleeping position when the jacket is fastened to the blanket.
Rogers. U.S. Pat. No. 2,439,101, issued Apr. 6, 1948, discloses a safety gown for bed patients and is particularly designed for infants to keep them covered and in a particular area of a bed, carriage or the like. The safety gown comprises a body portion including sleeves, where the body portion extends substantially to the waist of the infant. The remaining portion of the gown constitutes a sheet-like element which forms a long apron or blanket that covers the infant below the waist and which can be tucked in under a mattress or otherwise secured to maintain the infant in a predetermined area of the bed or carriage.
Taylor. U.S. Pat. No. 2,888,009, issued May 26, 1959, discloses an infant's sleeping bag which has ties at the four corners of the bag for attaching the garment to portions of the crib, bed, or the like upon which it is placed. The bag has an opening consisting of a neck opening and a slit, such that the slit can be closed by a fastening means, for instance a zipper. The infant's head is therefore held in position outside of the bag at the neck opening, while the remainder of the infant's body is held in the bag and covered from the neck down.
Evans, U.S. Pat. No. 3,521,309, issued Jul. 21, 1970, discloses a restraining sheet particularly adapted for use in cribs to maintain the desired sheet and blanket coverage over an infant. The restraining sheet is a combined pocket-containing crib sheet and blanket in which the crib sheet is placed over a mattress and preferably held in place by straps that are tied together. The blanket is attached to the pocket by a fastening means and thereby maintained in the desired position with respect to the pocket. The infant is placed in the pocket of the crib sheet for sleeping.
Hubner, U.S. Pat. No. 3,845,513, issued Nov. 5, 1974, discloses a sleeping bag in which a sleeping blanket is attached, in the area of the back, to a bedlinen sheet which can be stretched and fittedly attached to a crib mattress. The blanket contains a bodice-like upper portion with a zipper opening and a bag-like lower portion. A baby is placed in the bag either face up or face down, and the bag restrains the baby from standing up or removing the clothes.
Hummel, U.S. Pat. No. 3,872,524, issued Mar. 25, 1975, discloses a baby cover that comprises a jacket-shaped section that is continuous with a rectangular section, whereby the rectangular section is held on a mattress by fasteners at the corners and adapted to be attached to a crib by straps so as to prevent movement of the cover. A slit extends from the bottom of the jacket neck hole into a portion of the rectangular section, and is closed with a zipper, so that a baby is covered from the waist up in the jacket section of the cover, with the baby's lower body covered and held under the rectangular portion of the cover.
Jeffries, U.S. Pat. No. 4,688,282, issued Aug. 25, 1987, discloses bedding for children that comprises a generally rectangular blanket that has several fasteners on it. The blanket is can be wrapped around a child's torso, lower body and legs and held in place with fasteners on the side and bottom edges of the blanket. A pair of straps is located on the top edge of the blanket and to fit over the child's shoulders, and centrally located fastener is adapted to secure the blanket between the child's legs to prevent the blanket from being upwardly displaced.
Li, U.S. Pat. No. 5,416,938, issued May 23, 1995, discloses a fastener for preventing quilts from being kicked off. The fastener includes a wrapping sheet and a quilt which have corresponding hook-and-loop type fasteners for wrapping a child's body and firmly securing the quilt over the child.
Washington, U.S. Pat. No. 5,933,886, issued Aug. 10, 1999, discloses a blanket for snugly engaging the body of a baby. The blanket includes a bottom portion having a head end, a leg end, a torso section lying between the ends, and a pair of arms extending from opposite sides of the torso section. A top section covers the leg end and the torso section of the bottom portion, and is held in place by the arms of the bottom section, which extend through slots in the top section. The arms fasten together to secure the top and bottom portions of the blanket around a baby.
Joyce, U.S. Pat. No. 6,266,822, issued Jul. 31, 2001, discloses a sleepwear and secured blanket-like member wherein the child's sleepwear is fitted with a plurality of fasteners that can be attached to corresponding fasteners on the blanket-like member. The blanket-like member has a generally bag-like configuration similar to a “sleeping bag”. For the purposes of this description, this bag-like structure will be described as a “slumber bag”.
The prior art discussed hereinabove attempts to provide means for securing a covering to a sleeping person. However, they all suffer from limitations that can make them either impractical, or undesirable to use. These limitations include fasteners that are awkward to use, covers that can only be used when fitted to a mattress or other sleeping surface, covers that restrict a sleeping position to either face up or face down, covers that restrain or restrict a person's bodily movement so that the cover is uncomfortable as well as potentially unsafe to the person, or covers that require a matched set of sleepwear to be fitted to the cover.
Other problems include the fact that most of these type of blankets or covers are generally directed towards very young infants, and therefore, they may not be applicable for covering a slightly older child. For example, the fastener means for a 1 month old infant might not be suitable for use with a 36 month old child.
Further, as the size of the child increases, the fastener means must be adaptable to firmly hold a larger child. Typically, hook and eye fasteners may not be practical for all applications since generally, as the child's size increases, the amount of material used for holding the hook and eye fasteners decreases as the fasteners are adjusted to a larger size. Thus, as the child becomes older, and therefore larger and stronger, the amount of fastener material available decreases.
Accordingly, there remains a need in the art for a means of securing a blanket to a person's clothing that is both safe and easy to use, and which can be used over a wide range of child ages.
Accordingly, it would be advantageous to provide a cover, or a slumber bag, which can be fitted to a child and which will be held on the child while eliminating the need for coordinated sleepwear and blanket combinations, or the other devices described in the prior art.